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What Audiences Expect & Why Brands Need to ‘SIMPLIFY’ the Journey

Pratick Thakrar, CEO at Inspired Mobile

From strategies to re-imagine and ‘hyper-personalise’ the customer experience to ways brands are harnessing mobile and offers linked to context to improve loyalty programmes, marketers must determine the appropriate channels and approaches that will satisfy people’s growing requirement for personalised and relevant brand communications.

But to be truly effective, and engaging, brands must also have the capabilities to inspire consumers at relevant moments in their journey and then reconnect with these consumers at times — and in ways — they will accept, appreciate and even find incredibly helpful.

But, whilst these exchanges may be mobile-first, they should not be mobile-only.

This is because mobile is no longer a channel; it’s a behaviour. In view of this fact brands and marketers must be creative and innovative in their communications with their target audiences. They must also ensure their approach understands and attends to customer requirements every step of the daily journey.

These conditions combine to amplify the need for a single source data platform, to engage the customer as an individual, not as a generic audience

segment, to ensure personal and relevant content experiences are sent to the customer when they want.

To this end Inspired Mobile equips marketers with a campaign activation platform that spans the complete customer journey, from the initial decision to engage with a brand, through to interacting with relevant branded content — content delivered via advertising (digital and traditional), newsletter, text message, printed material or contactless channels including NFC and QR codes — at a time that the consumer (not the technology) deems appropriate.

This is why Inspired Mobile has literally taken its inspiration from consumers in order to provide marketers with the actionable answers. At the core is a platform that turns content into a causeway that links and bridges interactions and insights to span the complete customer journey.

At the start of the journey a consumer is exposed to branded content served by Inspired, an action that also automatically generates a unique identifier. This fingerprint, which is not based on personally identifiable information, allows the brand to re-engage and re-target the same opted-in consumer throughout the journey with communications and tailored promotions.

The key here is to be personal, relevant and considerate.

To achieve this Inspired also offers an evolving suite of solutions. We have a direct relationship with over 800 global and local Premium publishers allowing us to run innovative mobile and desktop creative ads.

In addition, our Wi-Fi proposition allows retailers, events, stadiums to offer proximity/beacon solutions, to glean new insights into their customers and visitors. As a result, brands and marketers are ensured visibility into real footfall being driven by media, without piggybacking a tag management system.

To better understand how brands can accompany their customers throughout the journey,

Helen’s journey begins when she is exposed to a mobile ad for a retail shop

on her smartphone, an action that also generates a unique identifier.

Later, when Ellen is out shopping, she enters the same retail shop and logs on to their free Wi-Fi. The unique identifier, which Inspired Mobile generated for Ellen, recognises that she saw the ad earlier on her mobile device and offers her a tailored promotion. What’s more the promotion appears alongside a 2D barcode, in this case a unique barcode linked to the retail shop’s stock.

Thus Ellen is presented with a personalised promotion that she can redeem while in a context that removes the friction and increases her satisfaction with the experience and the brand that made it possible.

And the journey doesn’t have to stop there.

On the way home, Ellen receives a message on her smartphone from the same retail shop wanting to say ‘thank you for visiting us today’ and asking her to fill in a short satisfaction survey. Since Ellen has had a superior customer experience, one that also delivered a promotional offer perfectly adapted to her context and preferences, she is happy to oblige.

Finally, the personalisation enabled by the platform paves the way for the brands, like the retail shop, to retarget and reward valuable customers like Ellen.

Take a step back and the retailer has learned a lot of powerful data, data that starts with the rich media creative that triggered the conversion via the smartphone and concludes with the real-life preference and purchasing behaviour observed in-store.

Clearly, effective marketing and engagement is all about brands and marketers building the capabilities to design and deliver the compelling content and engaging experiences that are aligned and attuned to what customers want and how they want it — in the proper moments.

(This article is an excerpted from Mobile: The Great Connector (Volume 2), a comprehensive eBook authored by Peggy Anne Salz, chief analyst and content strategist of MobileGroove, in collaboration with the MMA EMEA and member sponsors Inspired and Brainstorm. Register hereto download your free copy of this essential marketing resource.)